This invention relates to equipment for handling materials, and more particularly, to a miniature, portable, self-contained power machine for use in the coal mining industry as well as other in other industries.
Throughout history, the mining and construction industries have both attempted to maximize the individual productivity of a worker. As time went on and technology advanced, machines which could give a single operator more power and capability to perform various tasks were developed and implemented into both industries. These machines, having typically been powered either electrically or hydraulically, gave the operators increasingly more and more ability to accomplish that which was once only achievable through strenuous manual labor.
In general, it may be said that the mining and construction industries have chosen the path of bigger, more powerful equipment. The prevailing philosophy seems to be that the more powerful the capital that a single worker has to operate, the more productively efficient that worker can function. In other words, by having larger and more powerful machines, an industry can accomplish the at least the same amount of work that it could if it had more workers and smaller, less powerful machines. The advantage of committing to bigger, more expensive machinery rests in the fact that, by spreading out the high fixed costs of these larger machines over thousands of hours of operation, an industry will ultimately save money by having less labor costs.
This commitment to bigger equipment has served the coal mining industry well. In mining, large equipment, personnel, electric power systems, and conveyor systems are all located in confined tunnels measuring from four feet to ten feet high by sixteen feet to twenty feet wide. These tunnels are progressively extended further into the ground as the recovery process continues. In addition to these tunnels, fresh air corridors have to be developed to circulate air from the surface, to the working areas of the mine, and back again to the surface. This is accomplished by building solid block walls in cross tunnels to keep each tunnel entry isolated.
As a mine advances forward, some back entries become impossible to reach with current larger mining machinery. These entries become partially obstructed with new rail systems, new conveyors, and a number of other obstacles. Yet, these areas often require different maintenance routines such as providing additional roof support, cleaning conveyor entries, shoveling and hauling out loose material, and building new stopping walls that have been damaged. Unfortunately, the tight clearance of approximately four feet afforded to many of these entries leaves virtually no alternative but to do whatever task there is manually. Though the bigger, more powerful machines could easily do the jobs, they simply cannot fit. Instead, men with shovels, wheelbarrows, and other manual tools are forced to do whatever task there may be within these confined entries with nothing except shear manpower. Materials such as concrete, concrete blocks, wood support posts, metal roofbolts, air drills, and rock dust are thus carried by hand to these hard to access, narrow areas.
The mining industry therefore lacks a power machine that is small enough to fit through the four feet of minimum width clearance in a conveyor belt entry, that is versatile to the degree that it is able to accomplish a large variety of functions with different hydraulically powered implements, that is able to pass over the roughest types of terrain, and that receives power from a supply attached to the machine or from a supply external to the machine.